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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26424913">The King's Confession</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sinelaborenihil/pseuds/Sinelaborenihil'>Sinelaborenihil</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Dragon Age: Origins</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M, Grief/Mourning, Spoilers</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 03:02:46</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,772</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26424913</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sinelaborenihil/pseuds/Sinelaborenihil</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Following the Battle for Denerim, King Alistair makes a confession to Zevran.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Zevran Arainai/Female Surana</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>31</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The King's Confession</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>
  <strong>SPOILERS FOR THE END OF DRAGON AGE ORIGINS </strong>
</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“What did Morrigan want, Amora?” Zevran asked when Indira returned from her meeting with the Witch of the Wilds. His Gray Warden looked tired and worried, and he hated to see it.<br/>
</p><p>Indira shot him a strained smile. “She is leaving,” she said, coming to sit next to him. “She wanted to say goodbye.” But he knew that there was something else. There was a strange heaviness to her that had not been present the last time they had spoken. Her eyes were those of someone who knew more than they wanted to know. Haunted.<br/>
</p><p>Zevran sat up on their bed, well, Arl Eamon’s bed, but every bed was theirs when they were together, and kissed her neck. “This is why you always lose at Wicked Grace, my Gray Warden,” he teased gently. “You cannot lie to a liar.”<br/>
</p><p>Indira chuckled quietly and turned to catch his lips with hers. “It’s hard losing a friend,” she said with a sad smile. “Especially tonight.” Her lips wobbled. “We will lose more tomorrow,” she said with the same eerie certainty she’d had in her voice the night she’d told him how overwhelmed she was.<br/>
</p><p>“That is the way of war,” Zevran said. “But it does us no good to think on that tonight. Let us instead take pleasure where we can.”<br/>
</p><p>Indira nodded and Zevran took her into his arms. Their lovemaking was somehow slower and more frantic than usual, and when they lay together after Zevran found himself brushing tears from Indira’s cheeks.<br/>
</p><p>“Zevran?” she whispered.<br/>
</p><p>“Si, Amora?”<br/>
</p><p>“If I-if I don’t make it tomorrow, I want you to know that I-”<br/>
</p><p>“You <em>will</em> make it,” Zevran said, his heart leaping up into his throat with speed that alarmed him. “And when you do, the things that I will do to you will make even the most creative antivan whore blush.”<br/>
</p><p>Zevran didn’t know why he was stopping her. He knew the words that she wanted to say. He felt them too. But to say such things on the eve of battle felt like admitting that there was a chance that he would lose her. And that was not a possibility that he was prepared to acknowledge.<br/>
</p><p>And for a moment the next day, he really thought that he’d been right. Indira had directed himself, Sten, and Leliana like a seasoned general as they battled the Archdemon. Together they had whittled its defenses down with the aid of mages, elves, dwarves, and the troops of Redcliff. It was a glorious battle, the kind that bards sung of, and Zevran was sure that Leliana had already at least half-composed a ballad.<br/>
</p><p>But something was wrong.<br/>
</p><p>The Archdemon was not dying and Zevran saw Indira square her shoulders after yet another barrage of arrows had failed to fell the Archdemon.<br/>
</p><p>“Amora!” Zevran screamed, his voice tearing at his throat as he saw Indira’s eyes dart towards him, a world of love and sorrow in their glorious amber depths as she took up a sword and staggered towards the Archdemon. With a howl of defiance, she had plunged the blade into the great beast’s neck and then Zevran was hurled to the ground with a shockwave that echoed the Archdemon’s roar.<br/>
</p><p>When he finally staggered to his feet, blood trickling from his nose as he coughed, Zevran saw no great corpse as one would have expected from the death of so huge a beast.<br/>
</p><p>He saw only the sprawled, broken body of the woman he loved.<br/>
</p><p>He dropped his weapons and lunged towards her with a howl of loss and sorrow. Zevran was an agent of death. He knew it well. He knew as soon as he laid eyes on her that she was gone. Yet he took her in his arms anyway, staring into her unseeing amber eyes as he begged the Maker, the old Elvish Creators, anyone who might be listening to bring Indira back to him.<br/>
But her eyes stayed open until he shut them with hands that shook.<br/>
</p><p>“Amora,” he whispered raggedly.<br/>
</p><p>And then it hit him.<br/>
</p><p>She had <em>known</em> the night before.<br/>
</p><p>She had known that it would take the death of a Gray Warden to kill the Archdemon.<br/>
</p><p>That was why she’d kept Alistair from the fight. That was why she had looked haunted.<br/>
</p><p>She had known that it was their last night together and that was why she had tried to say the words.<br/>
</p><p>And he hadn’t let her.<br/>
</p><p>“No,” Zevran choked out. “No, please...Amora, Indira…” He leaned his forehead against hers, hating how much cooler her body already felt. She was slipping away from him so fast. “I love you,” he whispered. “Te amo. Te amaré mientras viva. Nunca habrá otro. Siento no haberte dicho antes. Fui un tonto. Por favor perdoname. Te amo.”<br/>
</p><p>He felt a gentle hand on his shoulder and looked up into Leliana’s tear-filled eyes as the bard knelt next to them. “Ella supo, Zevran,” Leliana said quietly. “She knew.”<br/>
</p><p>There were heavy footsteps and Zevran felt Sten’s bulk hit the ground on his other side. “Kadan,” the qunari said, sounding broken. “Panahedan.” He turned to Zevran and he was surprised to see tears in the stoic Qunari’s eyes. “Let us take her away from this place,” Sten said. “She deserves to be at rest somewhere…”<br/>
</p><p>“Beautiful,” Leliana said.<br/>
</p><p>“Yes,” Sten said. Then he lifted Indira’s body as though she weighed nothing and together they trudged down to tell the King and Queen that the war had been won.<br/>
</p><p>The next few days were a blur to Zevran.<br/>
</p><p>Alistair had been horrified when they notified him of Indira’s death, his grief all but overshadowing the joy at their victory. His speech had been a heartfelt enough one, Zevran thought, though as he watched the young king extol Indira’s virtues.<br/>
</p><p>But at the back of Zevran’s mind was the thought: “It should have been you.”<br/>
</p><p>But he knew his beloved. He knew that she wanted, more than anything, for her home country to be at peace. She’d sacrified herself for that, so he kept his thoughts to himself.<br/>
</p><p>He did, however, avoid Alistair through the many ceremonies and celebrations that followed. He had promised to stay as long as Leliana did, the two of them had decided to travel together for a time, and she’d had business to wrap up. It was his last night in Denerim when Alistair finally cornered him.<br/>
</p><p>Zevran was drinking alone on a balcony off the second floor of the palace, listening to the sounds of frenzied celebration. Laughter that was just a little too high pitched, the voices of men who had too much to drink, almost desperate flirtation, and while normally this would have been his element, it grated on him.<br/>
</p><p>Yes, they had won. The Blight had been ended. The Archdemon was dead.<br/>
</p><p>But so was his Gray Warden.<br/>
</p><p>So was Indira.<br/>
</p><p>The Hero of Ferelden, for all that mattered to him.<br/>
</p><p>Zevran closed his eyes as the memory came back.<br/>
</p><p>Indira’s broken corpse upon the flagstone, her lovely eyes wide and unseeing.<br/>
</p><p>Dead and gone.<br/>
</p><p>A hero.<br/>
</p><p><em>The</em> hero.<br/>
</p><p>“Amora,” Zevran whispered raggedly, swallowing back tears. Never in his life had he bawled the way he had that night. Her loss was horrible enough in and of itself. He’d never knowns someone who could make him laugh so readily. Never felt such easy compatibility with someone. He had entertained thoughts of growing old at her side, hearing her laugh and call him a dirty old man when he pinched her lovely bottom.<br/>
</p><p>But that could never happen now. And the worst of it, the worst of it was that he’d never told her that he loved her. He’d never said the words because he was stubborn and stupid and a coward and now she was gone and would never, ever know that.<br/>
</p><p>Leliana had said that she knew, and he tried every night to tell himself that.<br/>
</p><p>But he still had never told her.<br/>
</p><p>He’d made sure that she was buried with his earring, but the truth was that his heart had been interred with her as well.<br/>
</p><p>“Zevran?”<br/>
</p><p>Cursing inwardly, Zevran plastered a neutral smile on his face and turned to face the King of Ferelden. “Your Majesty,” he said, sweeping into a grand bow. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”<br/>
</p><p>Alistair gave him a strained smile in return, closing the balcony door behind himself in the face of two harried-looking guards. “I wanted to talk. Leliana says you’re leaving tomorrow.”<br/>
</p><p>Zevran nodded. “We are,” he said.<br/>
</p><p>Alistair didn’t argue, to his surprise. “Zevran...I wanted to, needed to apologise.”<br/>
</p><p>“Please do not,” Zevran said, his throat immediately closing up as the treacherous tears threatened. Never before had his emotions lurked so close to the surface. He swallowed past the lump in his throat. “I cannot bear to hear it,” he said firmly. “She was glorious and brave, Alistair. And she made her choice. I would not detract from that by wishing that it were not so. <em>Though in my heart, that is exactly what I wish </em>Now, if you will excuse me, I need more wine.” He went to brush past Alistair, but the taller man stepped in front of him. “Wait,” Alistair said and there was a note of command in it.<br/>
</p><p><em>How quickly he has learned</em>, Zevran thought bitterly before forcing himself to calm down. For all that he knew, Indira was the only one privy to the great sacrifice that the Wardens had to make. She was the one in charge between herself and Alistair, after all. He could see her keeping that knowledge from her boyish companion.<br/>
</p><p>“Zevran...I need to tell you something,” Alistair said, suddenly not meeting Zevran’s eyes.<br/>
</p><p>Zevran motioned for him to continue and he saw the other man’s Adam’s apple bob.<br/>
</p><p>“Riordan told us that a Gray Warden’s death was required to kill and Archdemon,” Alistair blurted out.<br/>
</p><p>Zevran clenched his teeth so hard that he thought that they might break. So Alistair had known and he’d let Indira die anyway. He glared up into the taller man’s eyes. “You let her die,” he said flatly.<br/>
</p><p>Alistair flinched, but he did not deny it.<br/>
</p><p>“Very well,” Zevran said bitterly. “You have made your confession, Alistair. Now let me be on my way.” He went to push past Alistair when he was poleaxed by the king’s soft words.<br/>
</p><p>“That isn't my confession,” Alistair said.<br/>
</p><p>Zevran froze. “Meaning what?” he asked, not looking at his former friend.<br/>
</p><p>Alistair took a deep breath. “Morrigan wanted to do a ritual,” he said, pitching his voice low. “A <em>blood magic</em> ritual that would have produced a child. I don’t understand all of the magic, but...the child would have absorbed Urthemiel’s soul, rather than a Gray Warden needing to do it.” He shook his head. “Indira asked me to-to father Morrigan’s child so that we both might live.”<br/>
</p><p>Zevran stared up at him, his eyes going wide. “You-you could have <em>saved</em> her?” he hissed. “You could have saved Indira, Alistair?”<br/>
</p><p>“Yes,” Alistair said. “But Zevran, you have to understand, we had no way of knowing if Morrigan was telling the truth! Who knows what that ritual really would have done! And then there’s the whole issue of bastards complicating the line of succession-”<br/>
</p><p>“Yes, I would say that the royal succession has certainly been impacted by a <em>bastard</em>,” Zevran growled, throttling down the urge to draw one of his many hidden blades and put an end to Alistair’s confession once and for all.<br/>
</p><p>Alistair flinched. “Zevran-”<br/>
</p><p>“So, allow me to get this straight,” Zevran said and he heard how brittle and sharp his voice sounded. “All you had to do to save the woman I love was have sex with another beautiful woman and produce a child.”<br/>
</p><p>“We don’t know that it would have worked-”<br/>
</p><p>“Morrigan loved Indira like a sister,” Zevran managed to force out past the lump in his throat. The images were hitting him like hailstones of the life that could have been his. Telling Indira of his love beneath the stars on this very balcony instead of listening to the prattling of the boy king, marrying her back in Antiva City, seeing her lovely dark skin contrasted by the bright red of an Antivan wedding gown, making love to her as his wife and not only his beloved, living to hear her call him a dirty old man...it could have been his. “She would not have lied to her, not about something so important," he managed to choke out as his grief threatened to rob him of breath alltogether.<br/>
</p><p>Alistair fell silent, confirming that Zevran’s rage was not misplaced.<br/>
</p><p>“And you know it,” Zevran pressed. “So you let her die to protect your throne. A true king at last.”<br/>
</p><p>He found his back slammed into the wall next to the doors, out of sight of the ballroom.<br/>
</p><p>“I didn’t want her to die!” Alistair grated, glaring down at him. “I thought, when she ordered me not to come, that she’d found another way!”<br/>
</p><p>“It should not have been her doing the ordering in the first place!” Zevran retorted. “You were the senior Warden, Alistair, but you were weak then as you are now and you let her take charge because she had strength you could never hope to have!”<br/>
</p><p>Alistair released him and stepped back, and by the light streaming out from the ballroom, Zevran saw tears in his eyes. “You’re right,” Alistair said. “She is...was stronger than I could ever be, but I swear to you, Zevran, I am going to be worthy of her sacrifice.”<br/>
</p><p>“You will <em>never</em> be worthy,” Zevran said flatly. “Not if you lived a thousand lifetimes, Alistair Therin.” He shook his head. “Save your platitudes for someone who cares, for I do not.” He fixed the King of Ferelden with a glare. “Now let me pass. I hope never to look upon your face again.”<br/>
</p><p>“Until you stick a knife in my back, you mean,” Alistair said, his voice tired and bitter.<br/>
</p><p>Zevran let out a mirthless bark of laughter. “I will not kill you,” he said. “Indira, my...<em>heart</em> died so that her homeland could at last find peace. She <em>died</em> to put you on the throne. If anything, I will kill those who conspire to take it from you. I will not see her good work undone.” With that, he shouldered the other man aside and flung open the doors. He moved quickly through the crowd, not stopping until he was outside and around the corner in an alley where he could retch in peace. A little wine came up, but nothing else. When was the last time he’d eaten?<br/>
</p><p>“Parshaara,” said a soft, familiar voice. "It would sadden her to see you this way."<br/>
</p><p>“Have you ever been in love, Sten?” Zevran asked, not looking at his friend. “Or is that not allowed in the Qun?”<br/>
</p><p>“It is not,” Sten said. “But I believe I have, once. I have come to learn that Asala lies not only in my blade.”<br/>
</p><p>Zevran didn’t need to ask. “She is gone,” he said instead. “And I-I do not know how to go on knowing that I will never see her again. Never hear her laugh again or see her smile.” He shook his head, allowing the tears to fall.<br/>
</p><p>“I am no stranger to death,” Sten mused softly. “But I will admit I have not experienced a...loss such as this. Leliana says that our Commander...Indira, she will live on with us.” He shook his head. “But that does not blunt the edges of the loss.”<br/>
</p><p>“No,” Zevran said, swiping at the tears on his face.<br/>
</p><p>“But she also said that Indira would not want us to wallow,” Sten said firmly. “And that...that is an idea that I find...helpful.”<br/>
</p><p>“She would not,” Zevran ceded. “Indeed, she would likely have choice words for us if she could see us now.”<br/>
</p><p>“I believe that she can,” Leliana said, materializing from the shadows. “For if anyone has gone to the right hand of the Maker, it’s Indira.”<br/>
</p><p>“In that case,” Zevran said, doing his best to compose himself. He looked up at the night sky, at the stars that twinkled above them. “In that case, Amora, I will do my best to continue to live until I am able to join you.”<br/>
</p><p>But as he let Leliana lead him off towards their lodging, Zevran was faced with a cold certainty. The man who had loved the Gray Warden Indira, the Hero of Ferelden, was already dead.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Zevran's final words to Indira in Antivan (Spanish, in this case): "I love you. I will love you for as long as I live. There will never be another. I'm sorry I didn't tell you before. I was a fool. Please forgive me." </p><p>I know that this is on the sadder end of the spectrum, but it's been in my head for a bit and I had to get it out. I hope that you enjoyed it, insofar as one can with a story like this. </p><p>&lt;3<br/>Be safe and well</p></blockquote></div></div>
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